The year is ending, even though I played a lot, there weren't many new games in the end.
Bärenpark
Components
All of them are punchboard tiles of a good quality. Unfortunately the box have no insert on its own, only to dividing spacers, that let you sort the components a bit. Moreover apparently you can fit the base game with expansion in the same box, but I was unable to.
Set-up
Set-up is quite straightforward, however it takes a bit of time to put all of the components on their rightful places because of the sheer amount, especially with the expansion. There are no cards to shuffle, neither special components that require any special preparation beforehand.
Rules
Rulebook is easy to understand and really short – only 6 pages full of images to be exact. Rules are quite simple you place one of the object you have on hand on your park planchette if you cover any symbol you take such element from the storage. If you fill the whole planchette you take bear statue to finish the park. If everything is full you count the points.
Expansion adds additional tiles with new rules allowing you to discard tiles for another or take additional ones when placing “green” territories while also making the game three dimensional.
Gameplay
There is a 30-45 minute mark on the box I would say that is quite accurate. The game requires more or less the same number of turns to finish every time, because everyone have the access to the same tiles with only difference being the points on each.
Depending on order you start you will receive one or more green tiles representing parks. With those you will be able to get others, not only parks but also animal enclosures normal or special ones for polar bears or pandas and so on, each with distinctive format and size. Taking turns you try to fill your park consisting of 4 player boards (5 in expansion) doing missions along the way, that will help you amass more points. If it sounds simple that’s because it is. There are no dark twist in this game and also no possibilities to turn the game around in the mid to late game, so if you are behind your only choice is a hope that the opponent will make a mistake either in placing the tiles or following a wrong mission.
There are no special powers and the only few tiles that are unique (most of them are in the expansion). Components that allows you to place something in third dimension are only in the expansion, apart from those you can’t place anything on top of each other.
There is no negative interaction in the game apart from going for the same tiles and since apart from few ones that are of unique format the only difference is a few points so it shouldn’t break your plans in the long run.
While some expansions only make the games longer or simply add new mechanics this one – Bärenpark: The Bad News Bears adds new possibilities to form a park. You are no longer stick to one format, which makes the game more fun and boost its replayability by a huge margin.
Game is designed from 2 to 4 people, even with the expansion. I played it in 2 and 3 player configuration and it neither made the game much longer or much more complicated, only the scores were bigger. That’s because with more player there are more tiles to choose from each format (apart from the special ones).
Score
- Overall 7/10 – It is a good family game, little to none negative interactions with a cute theme. I enjoyed playing it with the expansion much more than the base game and will gladly play it again if proposed (and not so much without the expansion).
- Coming back 5/10 – Quick to set-up, rules are easy to explain unfortunately unless there is a will in the group I will rarely propose it since it’s not my favorite format.
- Fun factor 6/10 – The only fun factor for me in the game is how well you can design your park, which with three dimensional ropeway looks really awesome, unfortunately the rules and the game itself don’t stir too much for me.
Will it stay or go? – It’s a stay simply because once in a while building a park is really fun.
